Should Zoo Food Be Chopped for Captive Turacos?

It is common practice for keepers in zoological collections to provide animals in their care with food that is chopped into small pieces. Anecdotally, it has been suggested that chopped food reduces wastage and reduces aggression from group-housed animals. However, there is limited empirical evidence to support these suggestions. To investigate the effects of food condition (chopped or whole food), a study was undertaken on White-cheeked Turacos (Tauraco leucotis) and Fischer’s Turacos (Tauraco fischeri) at two zoological collections in the United Kingdom. This study investigated the effect of food condition on turaco behaviour, the amount of food eaten, and also the amount of time that keepers required to prepare the diet. There was no significant impact on the amount of food eaten as a result of providing whole food. For Fischer’s Turacos, the whole-food condition significantly increased the prevalence of feeding and foraging behaviour, whilst significantly reducing preening. For White-cheeked Turacos, only feeding and foraging was affected by food condition: no other behaviours were significantly affected by chopped or whole food. Keepers on average saved 151 s per meal when preparing whole-food diets. Overall, this study suggests that changing food presentation from chopped to whole has a limited impact on food intake and behaviour. Providing whole-food items may also save valuable keeper time. Future studies should investigate the impact of feeding whole-food items to a wider range of zoo-housed species.

Parkinson's disease Simulating complexity via improving the identification of significant genetic alterations and environmental contaminants should be a priority

Despite great improvements, more research is required to model Parkinson's complex neurodegenerative disease. Simulating the disease's complexity via improving the identification of significant genetic alterations and environmental contaminants should be a priority. Furthermore, because environmental toxins are typically exposed in a variety of combinations and over long periods of time, future research on Parkinson's disease modeling should take into account the diversity of hazardous exposures. To successfully mimic the impact of environmental contaminants on Parkinson's disease development, toxic exposure should be done through physiological channels as well, with chronic exposure regimens preferred over acute exposure regimens.

Energy conditions for inhomogeneous EOS and its thermodynamics analysis with the resolution on finite time future singularity problems

In this paper, we study two different cases of inhomogeneous EOS of the form [Formula: see text]. We derive the energy density of dark fluid and dark matter component for both the cases. Further, we calculate the evolution of energy density, gravitational constant and cosmological constant. We also explore the finite time singularity and thermodynamic stability conditions for the two cases of EOS. Finally, we discuss the thermodynamics of inhomogeneous EOS with the derivation of internal energy, Temperature and entropy and also show that all the stability conditions are satisfied for the two cases of EOS.

239 Changes in Children’s Schoolyear and Summer Sleep during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction In spring 2020, elementary schools closed to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Questionnaire data suggest children’s sleep was impacted during the pandemic, yet device-based data (i.e. accelerometry) on this topic is lacking. The purpose of this study was to examine children’s sleep during the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e. spring and summer 2020) compared to previous data collected from the same children during each of the two previous years (spring and summer 2018 and 2019). Methods 68 children (age = 9.9±1.2 years, 56% Black, 53% male) previously recruited for an observational cohort study wore a Fitbit Charge 2 on their wrist during the spring and summer from 2018-2020 (i.e. six 30-day measurement periods). We used multilevel mixed models to examine how children’s sleep patterns changed during the pandemic accounting for previous trajectory (i.e. 2018 to 2019). Models included age, sex, and race as covariates. Results Children had an average of 84 nights of sleep data across all six 30-day measurement periods. In the spring of the pandemic, children slept 24.6 minutes more (95%CI = 11.6, 37.5) compared to previous springs. During the pandemic summer, they slept 40.0 minutes more (95%CI = 24.6, 58.5) compared to previous summers. Sleep midpoint was 117.1 minutes later (95%CI = 103.6, 130.6) in the spring during the pandemic and 46.0 minutes later (95% CI = 26.9, 65.2) in the summer during the pandemic compared to previous years. Sleep efficiency improved slightly by 1.3% (95% CI = 0.7, 1.9) and 3.6% (95% CI = 2.7, 4.5) in spring and summer, respectively, during the pandemic compared to previous years. Conclusion During the COVID-19 pandemic, children slept longer after accounting for previous developmental trends. Notably, the shift in sleep timing during the pandemic was nearly two hours later in the spring compared to previous years, potentially due to the lack of structure usually provided by school. Later sleep timing is independently associated with poor health behaviors (e.g., nutrition, physical activity, screen time). Future studies should examine if these changes in sleep persist over time and have potential long-term effects on children’s health. Support (if any) R21HD095164 (PI Weaver) & UofSC COVID-19 Research Initiative Grant (PI Armstrong)

A systematic review of quantitative bias analysis applied to epidemiological research

Background Quantitative bias analysis (QBA) measures study errors in terms of direction, magnitude and uncertainty. This systematic review aimed to describe how QBA has been applied in epidemiological research in 2006–19. Methods We searched PubMed for English peer-reviewed studies applying QBA to real-data applications. We also included studies citing selected sources or which were identified in a previous QBA review in pharmacoepidemiology. For each study, we extracted the rationale, methodology, bias-adjusted results and interpretation and assessed factors associated with reproducibility. Results Of the 238 studies, the majority were embedded within papers whose main inferences were drawn from conventional approaches as secondary (sensitivity) analyses to quantity-specific biases (52%) or to assess the extent of bias required to shift the point estimate to the null (25%); 10% were standalone papers. The most common approach was probabilistic (57%). Misclassification was modelled in 57%, uncontrolled confounder(s) in 40% and selection bias in 17%. Most did not consider multiple biases or correlations between errors. When specified, bias parameters came from the literature (48%) more often than internal validation studies (29%). The majority (60%) of analyses resulted in >10% change from the conventional point estimate; however, most investigators (63%) did not alter their original interpretation. Degree of reproducibility related to inclusion of code, formulas, sensitivity analyses and supplementary materials, as well as the QBA rationale. Conclusions QBA applications were rare though increased over time. Future investigators should reference good practices and include details to promote transparency and to serve as a reference for other researchers.

Associations Between Abstract Concepts: Investigating the Relationship Between Deictic Time and Valence

The present study examines whether deictic time and valence are mentally associated, with a link between future and positive valence and a link between past and negative valence. We employed a novel paradigm, the two-choice-sentence-completion paradigm, to address this issue. Participants were presented with an initial sentence fragment that referred to an event that was either located in time (future or past) or of different valence (positive or negative). Participants chose between two completion phrases. When the given dimension in the initial fragment was time, the two completion phrase alternatives differed in valence (positive vs. negative). However, when the given dimension in the initial fragment was valence, the two completion phrase alternatives differed in time (future vs. past). As expected, participants chose completion phrases consistent with the proposed association between time and valence. Additional analyses involving individual differences concerning optimism/pessimism revealed that this association is particularly pronounced for people with an optimistic attitude.

Can We Predict Armed Conflict? How the First 9 Years of Published Forecasts Stand Up to Reality

Can we predict civil war? This article sheds light on this question by evaluating 9 years of, at the time, future predictions made by Hegre et al. (2013) in 2011. We evaluate the ability of this study to predict observed conflicts in the 2010–2018 period, using multiple metrics. We also evaluate the original performance evaluation, i.e., whether the performance measures presented by Hegre et al. hold in this new 9-year window. Overall, we conclude that Hegre et al. were able to produce meaningful and reasonably accurate predictions of armed conflict. Of course, they did not always hit the mark. We find that the model has performed worse in predicting low level incidence of conflict than in predicting major armed conflict. The model also failed to predict some important broader regional shifts. These, however, represent important insights for future research and illustrate the utility in predictive models for both testing and developing theory.

Web site blocking as a proxy of policy alignment

This work introduces a new metric of policy alignment between states: Web site blocking. Intuitively, we measure the degree to which states block similar content. This metric speaks to the flow of information in the digital layer of international politics, an element of international trade and cooperation that existing metrics fail to capture. In addition, our measure can be constantly scraped and updated, offering a higher temporal resolution than existing metrics. Our work suggests a link between Internet governance and other issues in international relations (e.g., trade). Since our metric can be updated in real time, future work could use our metric to detect geopolitical shifts more rapidly than would otherwise be possible.

Development and Initial Evaluation of the LGBTQ+ COVID-19 Concerns Scale

COVID-19 has had negative health and economic impacts on the U.S. population and on marginalized groups in particular. While policy and review papers have noted the unique concerns of LGBTQ+ individuals during the pandemic, these statements have drawn largely from existing data on health and economic disparities, rather than data collected during COVID-19. Research on the unique concerns and experiences of LGBTQ+ people during this time is urgent and yet no culturally relevant, validated measures have been developed to empirically examine these concerns. The current study reports on the development and exploratory factor analysis of a new measure, the LGBTQ+ COVID-19 Concerns Scale (LGBTQ+-CCS). Data was collected online in April 2020 from a sample of 429 LGBTQ+ adults in the United States. The final 15-item scale demonstrated initial validity and reliability and contains four subscales: mental health concerns, financial concerns, health and discrimination concerns, and social isolation concerns. The LGBTQ+-CCS can be used in research and clinical work to measure how concerns related to the pandemic are related to mental and physical health and to examine differences between LGBTQ+ subpopulations and LGBTQ+ people over time. Future research should focus on further validating the measure through confirmatory factor analysis.